From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 03:00:25 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87pp6qz8pi.fsf@debian.uxu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: mailman.1662.1430079142.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
>>>> "Predicate" is a word from the grammars of human
>>>> languages, but I don't know its exact meaning,
>>>> neither there or in programming languages (until
>>>> now as for programming).
>>> AFAIK, "predicate" is a word from /logic/, and it
>>> means (more or less) a function which consumes one
>>> or more arguments of any type and gives back
>>> a truth-value.
>> Doesn't all functions in logic do that?
>
> First of all: IANAL (here L = logician;-)). But...
>
> For starters, in propositional calculus (AFAIK, also
> in first-order logic) there are no "functions" per
> se, since there are no /sets/. Furthermore, in the
> logic systems usually used by us mathematicians
> there are no /types/. AFAIK, the analogue of "type
> mismatch" in these systems is just a plain old
> "syntax error".
>
> What you probably refer to is the fact that in these
> simple logic systems both predicates and logical
> connectives "generate" truth-values. However, there
> are other possibilities; analogues of "functions" in
> these systems are called "terms".
I just looked it up in one of my favorite books,
namely
@book{oxford-dictionary-of-computing,
title = {Oxford Dictionary of Computing},
author = {John Daintith and Edmund Wright (editors)},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
year = 2010,
ISBN = 0199234000
}
and your are absolutely right! A predicate is
a boolean function of n-arity: if n = 0
(i.e., no arguments) the function is called
a "statement" as the function value cannot change.
I also looked up "unary" but it wasn't included in the
"unary operator" sense, i.e. a function that accepts
a single input argument, e.g. f(x) or the suggested
zero-string predicate.
However, "unary operation" was included: a function
f: D -> R
where the input domain equals the output range:
f: S -> S
- which is *not* what we have here as here the input
set is all strings, while the output ditto is the mere
{ t, nil }
So all is clear, but it is error-prone and can be
confusion as well. So next time I'll just say "a
function with a single argument". Maybe.
By the way, "UNIX" (the name) is (?) a pun/joke on
this. It's predecessor was Multics, which was planned
to be a multiuser system, hence the name. But that
never materialized. UNIX, on the other hand, would
conquer the world a multiprogram, multiuser, and
time-sharing system...
--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-04-27 1:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 28+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-04-25 3:44 no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp Emanuel Berg
2015-04-25 9:26 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-05-16 9:23 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-05-16 13:22 ` Bozhidar Batsov
2015-05-16 13:28 ` Bozhidar Batsov
2015-05-16 13:36 ` Bozhidar Batsov
2015-05-16 13:46 ` Eli Zaretskii
2015-05-16 16:17 ` Bozhidar Batsov
2015-05-16 13:43 ` Stefan Monnier
2015-05-16 15:27 ` Drew Adams
[not found] ` <mailman.1583.1429954907.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-04-25 11:22 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-04-25 13:30 ` Stefan Monnier
[not found] ` <mailman.1591.1429968677.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-04-25 14:48 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-04-26 2:52 ` Stefan Monnier
2015-04-27 10:28 ` zerop: compiler macro vs defsubst (was: no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp) Nicolas Richard
2015-04-27 12:19 ` zerop: compiler macro vs defsubst Stefan Monnier
[not found] ` <mailman.1626.1430016741.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-04-26 4:06 ` no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-04-26 21:25 ` Stefan Monnier
2015-04-26 4:26 ` Rusi
2015-04-26 12:36 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-04-26 15:03 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-04-26 18:34 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-04-26 18:59 ` Marcin Borkowski
[not found] ` <mailman.1658.1430074770.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-04-26 19:06 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-04-26 20:11 ` Marcin Borkowski
[not found] ` <mailman.1662.1430079142.904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-04-27 1:00 ` Emanuel Berg [this message]
2015-04-26 17:28 ` Rusi
2015-04-26 18:39 ` Emanuel Berg
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